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The painstakingly planned and religiously researched Ego Trip's Bookof Rap Lists| (St Martin's Press), a bittersweet love letter of sorts to the music industry, hits some stores Tuesday and will be be widely available on November 30th. As usual, emotions and controversy swirl through the heads of its sacred cow-smashing writers.
The latest installment in the ongoing Ego Trip saga, a follow-up to
the #13 and final Ego Trip issue, the book is both a grandiose
statement and a challenge to anyone who thinks they know better.
The challenge is issued by rapnerds Sacha Jenkins, Elliot Wilson,
Chairman Mao, Gabriel Alvarez and Brent Rollins, all of whom have
an impressive industry pedigree. "Hip-hop books ain't nothing new,
they've been around forever--it was time that someone did one of
this scope," says former Managing Editor Gabriel Alvarez. "It was
one of our goals to show people that yeah, you should have been
doing this because it helps legitimize the artform and it's also
something that encouragesexploration and for other people to take
it seriously."
Sacha Jenkins and Elliot Wilson launched Ego Trip in 1994 with a
donation from Henry Chalfant, the man responsible for Style
Wars. Over the years it's built a significant group of
dedicated fans in additionto challenging and inspiring their
industry peers with it's offbeat sense of humor and fearless
approach.
"We liked to think of ourselves as a big rock group or an all-star
teamwhere we all got together-it was like every issue was a big
production-like an album where we'd all come together and do it,
and there wasn'tno guarantee we'd do another one," Wilson
reminisces fondly.
Long before the book was conceptualized, Ego Trip
confoundedexpectations. "People kinda' look at 'zines as sorta'
like a rock,Whiteboy kinda' thing, we felt like we wanted to do a
really smartversion of a hip-hop book." says Wilson, a Queens
native who was born to a Black father and a Greek/Ecuadorian
mother. "I always used to joke around that Ego Trip was done by a
bunch of white boys."
But Ego Trip has always been diverse, its racial make-up a
veritablerainbow of races. "Our team, I wouldn't change the ethnic
make-up ofit, because I feel like that's one our biggest strengths:
that we're allmutts," says Alvarez, who is a Mexican-American. He
also noted that having some "light-skinded brothers"around was
particularly helpful when trying to catch a cab.
Funny though, is that their publisher Theodore Aloysius Bawno (a
morereclusive Mr. Drummond, older Steve McQueen in "The Thomas
Crown Affair"hybrid) is basically, the man. The White man. (The
name Ted Bawno is actually an anagram of the word Beatdown, the
magazine where Wilson and Jenkins began their careers.)
After an unsuccessful attempt on his life just before Ego Trip
#13,Bawno's back. While traveling constantly, he cracks the whip
fromafar. After checking his phone line for taps, Wilson whispers
in ahushed tone, "He's secretly preparing for the 60 Minutes
expose, so he'strying to cover up all his loose ends, he's
basically paying people offall across the country so that when Mike
Wallace shows up at their doorthey have nothing but good things to
say about him."
An environment rife with fears ranging from Biz Markie appearing to
stealhis likeness back to not being accepted is where Ego
Trip's Book of Rap Listswas written. "It was horrific,"
Alvarez says, wincing audibly, recounting Kathy Lee Gifford's
interest in farming out clothing contracts to the Ego Trip offices.
"We had to step up and confront Tedand I think that secretly, just
between you and me, he's scared of us. We worked from a dungeon of
rap, literally and figuratively. We are ina place that has shit
going through pipes above us that could explode atany moment. Weird
smells and dampness, but we also have every rap CDever made, we
have the Biz Markie puppet from the Masta Ace "Me and theBiz"
video, a lot of stuff that keeps us warm and comfy too. A lot ofthe
working conditions were horrific, but I feel like it helped
buildour character a lot too."
Wilson agrees. "We're good friends, this is really a testament to
ourfriendships that we were able to tolerate each other, cause we
get oneach other," his voice tightening, struggling for words
"We're a bunchof bitches when we're vulnerable."
And as anyone who's ever bonded with others under adverse
conditions,oppression brings people together. The Ego Trip staff
got together andcollectively called themselves the Monkey Academy,
flipping theoppression script, the servants becoming masters.
Unfortunately forfans and lovers alike, "not everybody can be a
monkey. You can havemonkey-like qualities, you can do monkey-like
things, but it takes acertain type of people to be monkeys,"
Alvarez says thoughtfully. "But I think that those people are some
of the more happierpeople, even if at the end of the day you're not
eating every day, oryou're wearing your big brother's clothes still
and you're 28 yearsold. But everybody can benefit and learn from
the monkeys. That's whatthis book is gonna' do, it's a book by
monkeys, for monkeys, but it'sgonna benefit everybody, non-monkeys
too will want to be monkeys. That's the secret to our success, is
that every person that isn't amonkey wants to be a monkey."
Monkey or not, Alvarez believes "it's a nice reference book to
haveinformation at your disposal, instantly, but at the same time,
theaverage Joeski Love will love it because you don't even need to
knowanything about rap, but you'll see a thing about the greatest
referencesto sweaters of all time, and - my mom would enjoy that,
she likessweaters."
So while certain members of the Monkey Academy are still
decidingwhether or not their parents should see the book, Wilson
says, "all thecritical acclaim needs to translate to commercial
gain. We're likerappers; we don't want to sacrifice artistic
integrity either. We wanna'do it our way, like Usher."
Look for Ego Trip to put their name on whatever they can in the
future,including The Big Playback, due out in the early millennium,
on RawkusRecords. Jeremy Relph